


Just pretending

by Eowima



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Date, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Holidays, MJ goes on a date with Peter, Strangers to Lovers, except somehow that's not what ends up happening at all, nothing happens, that's alright she doesn't want to date anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28322667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eowima/pseuds/Eowima
Summary: He’s late.Honestly, MJ shouldn’t be that surprised about it – she isn’t.Peter Parker is always late, everyone knows that.She’s not exactly pissed per se. At least she doesn’t think so. She didn’t expect much, to be honest. She’s only going out with him because Betty insisted that he’s great and that they’d get along – but she’s sure she’s only saying that because of double dates possibilities.
Relationships: Betty Brant/Ned Leeds, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker
Comments: 22
Kudos: 28
Collections: Spideychelle Secret Santa - 2k20





	Just pretending

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dredfulhapiness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/gifts).



> Merry Christmas Jo!!! :D I hope you enjoy this first part of your Secret Santa gift :D I had a lot of fun writing it!! This will probably be two chapters, but who knows, maybe it'll be three, depends on how much I write for next chapter xD  
> Anyway, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate it! ♥

**Just pretending**

**Chapter 1**

He’s late.

Honestly, MJ shouldn’t be that surprised about it – she isn’t.

Peter Parker is always late, everyone knows that.

She’s not exactly pissed per se. At least she doesn’t think so. She didn’t expect much, to be honest. She’s only going out with him because Betty insisted that he’s great and that they’d get along – but she’s sure she’s only saying that because of double dates possibilities. Peter Parker is Ned Leeds’ best friend, Ned Leeds is going out with Betty Brant, Betty Brant is Michelle Jones’ colleague/intermittent best friend whenever Liz is not around. It makes sense.

Probably.

When she thinks about it though, Betty isn’t the first one to tell her she’d be great with Peter Parker. He works at Stark Industries too, in the R&D department on floor 16, while she’s working in the legal department on the 24th. They see each other in the elevator every now and then. He kinda falls in the ‘hard to miss’ category. Cute face, warm eyes, pretty brown curls when it rains – also, very nice butt. He’s polite and quiet, always offers her a nod and a smile whenever they cross paths.

But he also has a reputation, of always being late – would you look at that – and of taking leaves of absence every now and then and coming back looking like he’s on his way to recovering from being beaten up pretty hard. There’s a lot of rumors about this guy in SI, not that MJ pays much attention to those, but still. He’s intriguing, she has to give it to him, but at the same time she’s much too busy with everything else in her life to indulge herself in much more than the occasional one-night stand every now and then.

She hasn’t exactly dated anyone since Harry back in college, and that didn’t really end well anyway. She’s definitely not looking for that kind of thing again, she thinks.

Still, she promised Betty she’d give him a try, so there she is.

She’s considering ordering on her own when she catches sight of him barreling into the coffee shop, not out of breath but it’s still pretty apparent that he was just running. She bites down her smirk at the mess of his hair and his cheeks tinted with pink from the cold December air, and checks her watch in a non-subtle way. She doesn’t want to be rude, not really, because she really doesn’t expect anything from this date, and she’s not even that annoyed because she’s been reading a very interesting article on the chemtrails conspiracy theory while she waited, but still, it’s probably time this guy learns that letting someone wait like that is quite a jerk-move.

He stumbles in front of her table and she raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “Michelle, hi,” he stammers, gripping the back of the chair with a very apologetic look. “I’m so sorry I’m–”

“24 minutes late,” she supplies, and he winces at that.

“I know, I’m sorry, I feel terrible.”

He does look like he’s feeling really bad about it, so she only stares accusingly at him for a couple more seconds before nodding to the chair across the table from her. “Wanna order something?” she asks casually, smiling to herself when his eyebrows raise up in surprise.

“Oh, sure!” he exclaims after a second, sitting awkwardly, and she thinks to herself he probably doesn’t do the whole dating thing very often either. She wonders if he has expectations for this date or if he’s doing his best friend a favor too. She kind of hopes the former to be true. She really doesn’t want to break his heart or something. After all he does seem sweet.

It’s a little awkward at first – especially on his end – but after a while he seems to get more comfortable and they start the usual back and forth of first date questioning – the kind of things she never really appreciates, to be honest, but yeah. He’s nice though, and interesting, and when he stands up to grab more napkins she catches herself checking out his butt. It really is nice, she doesn’t think she needs to feel bad about it.

If he hadn’t been working at SI too, she thinks she’d have probably offered to go back to her place. They aren’t exactly _clicking_ , but he’s nice, and sweet, interesting and also _yes_ , very good-looking too, but she doesn’t want to make things weird at work, and doesn’t know him enough to be sure he wouldn’t be weird being around a one-night stand on a regular basis. They’re not _working_ working together, but still, they meet fairly often in the elevator, almost every day, and she has more interesting things to do than deal with an immature man whose ego’s been hurt because she doesn’t want to date him.

Not that she knows for sure that he would be that kind of man, she honestly has no idea, but it doesn’t seem worth the risk in any case.

So that’s why when they’re done with their coffee and he offers to go out and walk around for a little bit, she declines politely and says she has a lot of work and should go home – which is not a lie, she really does. He doesn’t seem that surprised about it, or that disappointed either, and they part with the usual ‘that was nice, we should do it again sometimes’ that they both know means what it means.

It’s early December, people are out and about shopping and enjoying the beautiful lights in the streets, and Michelle Jones waves goodbye to Peter Parker with no real intent to see him again – apart from the occasional polite greeting in the elevator at work.

Somehow though, that’s not what happens at all.

Because over the next two weeks, she keeps seeing him _everywhere_ she goes. Somehow they meet in the cafeteria when that never used to happen, and somehow they also cross path _outside_ of work, which never happened before either. She spots him on a Saturday afternoon while she’s out getting her groceries. She sees him on the other side of the street one Friday night just as she’s about to grab a movie with Liz and Betty. She runs into him in Central Park of all places during one of her Sunday morning jog.

She knows he sees her every time too. Their eyes meet, and she kind of hates to admit it because it doesn’t make any sense, but after a while her heart starts doing funny things in her chest when it happens. It’s perfectly irrational, she thinks. And quite frustrating, since she doesn’t think she can do much about it.

There’s just something about him. She can’t quite pinpoint what exactly.

He was interesting when they talked, and kind, and obviously very polite because he nods and smiles at her every time they see each other – and if you don’t count the tardiness, it was more or less a successful date, even if they didn’t kiss-or-more. She’s not going to linger on the ‘very attractive’ part again. It’s just the work thing… but no, that’s an excuse, she just really doesn’t want to date right now. That should be good enough reason though, right?

So why does she feel like this?

Quite frustrating, really.

She’s feeling a little mad at him, and she knows she shouldn’t because none of this is his fault, but she still is. After the fifth time seeing him outside of work, as she felt her cheeks become distinctively hot when he waved at her from the other side of the escalator at Macy’s, she decides that she needs to do something about this mess she got herself into.

She doesn’t want to ask him out. Doesn’t want to date him. She’s not exactly sure sleeping with him would solve the problem either. _Ugh_ , but how did he grow on her so fast though? This is just ridiculous. She’s gotta do something about it.

It’s December 18th and she’s doing some last minute Christmas shopping – she has this rule where she has to be done with that a week before actual Christmas because otherwise it’s a mess. When she gets out of the little coffee shop she went in half an hour ago for some much deserved cookies and tea – Christmas shopping can be exhausting okay, fight her – and runs right into him, she’s only half surprised really.

She bumps hard into him because yes, she wasn’t paying attention, and he steadies her with a hand on her elbow and the other one dangerously close to her waist. She curses her treacherous heart then pretends to glare at him, and the idiot has the audacity to chuckle. “Hi,” he says, taking a step back and still grinning.

“Peter Parker,” she states with a frown, and before she can stop herself, she adds: “Are you following me?”

It effectively wipes out his grin and she has to bite the inside of her cheek to not chuckle when he blushes hard. “What? No!” he exclaims, shaking his hands in front of him, and really, what an idiot.

_Cute idiot_.

She raises an unconvinced eyebrow at that, laughing internally as his movements become almost erratic. “I swear I’m not!” he says, dropping his hands and shaking his head. She cannot prevent her smirk after that, and somehow he narrows his eyes at her a little, with a ghost of a grin on his lips. “Wait, are _you_ following me?” he asks suspiciously, then chuckles at the glare she gives him in response.

Her heart somehow does another little flip in her chest, and that’s _it_. She assesses him for a second, and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other a little awkwardly, reaching to scratch the back of his neck. She’d noticed during their first date – their _only_ date, she has to remind herself – that he did that quite often. It hadn’t seemed that _endearing_ before, and ugh, what is all this? Christmas turning her into a sap or something?

“So, do you wanna mess with everyone and pretend we’re dating at the office party next Saturday?” she blurts out suddenly, and luckily Peter seems too stunned by her question to realize how astonished she is herself at what she just said. Oh, God. So that’s the direction she’s taking, apparently? Alright then.

“Wh-what?”

“I mean,” she shrugs, “I don’t know about you but Betty keeps buggering me about that date we went on, so I was thinking, maybe it’s time to mess with her a bit?”

To be fair, it’s only half a lie, she reasons. Betty did insist a lot to know how the date went, and why she thought she shouldn’t see him again after that. It only happened one time, the day after the date, and then she gave up because MJ wouldn’t say anything and never talked about it again but… yeah he doesn’t need to know that.

“Um, I uh–” His cheeks are very red, and he’s obviously very nervous all of a sudden, and she’s too impatient to wait for him to get pass his anxious stuttering.

“And anyway, it would make that evening far less _boring_ , really.”

“Pretending to… date me?” he lets out, brows knitting together in deep surprise.

“I mean, yeah.” She doesn’t know what else to say, honestly. It doesn’t make any sense, she can’t give him good reasons to do it because she has no idea _why_ she offered to do it in the first place. She’s never done anything like that before. It really makes no sense. She can’t exactly back out of it now though, she’d look like an idiot. She doesn’t want that.

Nope.

Peter’s staring at her intently, like he’s trying to read her mind. She can feel her cheeks warming up by the second, and she doesn’t like it one bit, but it’s like she cannot look away. Like she’s lost in his soft, brown eyes. Oh wow she’s in trouble.

“Okay.”

Her own eyebrows raise up in surprise, and a tiny smile stretches his lips at her reaction. “Okay?”

“Sure, why not,” he shrugs, sliding his hands in his pockets. She looks at him suspiciously, not quite sure what just happened – and _why_ he said yes to that very stupid idea, really. “Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“I’ll put my number in it,” he explains with a cute smile and another shrug, “that way you can text me the color of your dress and I’ll match my tie to it.”

She pretends to stare at him for a few seconds like this is just very inconvenient for her, but really her heart jumped again in her chest at his words and she hates that he’s being so sweet and practical about this. What’s wrong with him, really? Why is he going along with her stupid idea? This doesn’t make any sense.

She still hands him his phone though. He thanks her, his fingers brushing hers, and she pretends to sigh to hide the way the contact with his skin made a shiver run up her arm. He puts his number in, then gives the phone back to her with a satisfied smile. “This is _not_ a date,” she blurts out, feeling the urge to make sure they’re on the same page.

“I know I know,” he nods quietly, “just pretending.”

She nods too, narrowing her eyes at the somehow satisfied smile still plastered on his face. She eyes him up and down, taking a step back, and smiles to herself when his cheeks redden a little because of it. “Don’t be late.”

This very effectively wipes the smile off his face this time, and he lets out an embarrassed chuckle, scratching the side of his neck. “Right, sure, sorry.”

She waves him off and turns heels, smiling to the ground despite herself.

She has no idea what she’s doing, but when she reaches the corner of the street and looks back, it’s to find him still staring at her with a dazed grin on his face, and it definitely makes her heart flutter in her chest again.

**Author's Note:**

> Next chapter should be written in the next few days! :D Hope you enjoyed this ♥


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